Thu, 27 June, 2019
TWI, in conjunction with project leader OMI and Brunel University, have successfully completed the preliminary design review (PDR) of the tooling suite required under the COMBUSS project. This was completed on 6th June, 2019, and was led by the topic manager of the work, Aernnova.
The COMBUSS project started in November 2018, to develop novel heated composite tooling for out-of-autoclave processing for a composite wing skin with integrated stringers for the aerospace industry. The tooling delivered under this project will be capable of being used within an autoclave or, by using the integrated heating, out-of-autoclave depending on the needs of the topic manager. A key part of this project will see heating elements built into the composite tool skin and the supplementary tooling required for the integrated stringers. In-situ cure monitoring of the parts will aim to provide dual benefits to end-users; cure validation for part traceability of out-of-autoclave parts and cure cycle optimisation, reducing the energy requirements for part processing. The challenge of this project is integrating the heating and control into tooling for a 5m x 1.2m part.
The project is due to conclude in December, 2019, with the delivery of the tooling to the topic manager and test part manufacturing to validate the tooling concept on parts for a large-scale demonstrator.
